NOAAs Fisheries Protects Bering Sea Habitat

US - NOAAs Fisheries Service has prohibited the use of bottom trawl gear in 130,000 squarenautical miles of the Bering Sea, an area where the gear has not been used previously, toprotect the sea bottom habitat.

This allows bottom fishing to continue where it has occurred historically, while protecting
undisturbed habitats and nearshore bottom habitat that support subsistence marine resources
and blue king crab, said Doug Mecum, acting administrator for the Alaska region of NOAAs
Fisheries Service. The rule, recommended by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council,
protects large areas of sea bottom for the future, with minimal effect on today's fisheries.

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"The rule, recommended by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council,
protects large areas of sea bottom for the future"

The agency received over 6,000 public comments on the proposed rule, which was
released for review in March. The majority of comments supported the action. No changes were
made in the final rule from the proposed rule. The new closure is in addition to about 290,000
square nautical miles of habitat in the North Pacific that came under new protections in 2006.

Newly closed are Bering Sea Habitat Conservation Area, the largest area covered by the
new rule; the St. Lawrence Island Habitat Conservation Area; the St. Matthew Island Habitat
Conservation Area; and the Nunivak Island, Etolin Strait, and Kuskokwim Bay Habitat
Conservation Area.

Closing waters around St. Matthew Island will protect habitat for blue king crab, a
species which is still depleted in spite of fishing closures in place since 1999. Closures around
St. Lawrence Island and Nunivak Island and within Etolin Strait and Kuskokwim Bay support
subsistence species such as halibut, which inhabit the sea floor, and walrus, which feed from
the sea.

In one of the areas closed to commercial bottom trawling, the Northern Bering Sea
Research Area, scientists will study the effects of bottom trawling on habitat.